Page 90 of Wings of Reverie

Because he’d wanted to protect Periwinkle, despite everything. “I read Stella’s notes in the Sapphire Mine journal,” he said. “She made things to protect children from nightmares, wrote about it all in incredible detail. I started to wonder what might be possible with your dreams. Dreams that weren’t weakened from a trip across the Never Sea.”

“See?” she said. “And your bracelet worked! I think Stellaunderstood things that other dream-talents didn’t.” She hesitated, swallowing hard. “What if there’s something in her workshop that could help us?”

For a moment, Weaver could only stare at her. “You want to go to Stella’s workshop? On Snow Globe Mountain?”

“I think this is our best chance,” she said.

“But even Selene—” She’d died. Selene had died there. He couldn’t let Periwinkle go. “Let me go instead.”

“Why you?”

Weaver’s face hardened. “Because I should have to fix this. And you deserve to be safe.”

“No.” Periwinkle crossed her arms. “What I deserve is to not have any more choices taken away.”

Weaver bowed his head, sliding his hands into his pockets. And suddenly, he remembered something. He lifted his head and looked up at Periwinkle, feeling a sudden spark of hope.

“What?” she asked anxiously.

Weaver pressed his lips together. “Dougal wouldn’t have wanted me to do this. But not everything was a lie.”

“What do you mean?”

“I spun your nightmares, like Dougal and I agreed.” He hesitated. “But I also spun your dreams, just like I told you I would. I told Dougal I’d make just enough thread to make our bracelets, but—”

Weaver drew a spider-silk pouch from his pocket and took out a full skein of dream-thread. Periwinkle gasped.

“You spun my dreams,” she said softly. “You did it.”

For a moment, Weaver struggled to speak. “Dougal and I had a plan all along. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the workshops, and then we found the journal, and I’d never seen dream magic like the kind they did. I’d always seen it as this thing that made me a terrible, lonely exception, and then it was this thing we were using to trick you and punish everyone else.” Yearning yanked tightly on a thread in his chest. “But reading that journal…It could be so different.Icould be different.”

“You spun my dreams,” Periwinkle said again, shaking her head.

“And with Stella’s loom, I can weave it into something to destroy the nightmares,” he finished. Periwinkle pressed her lips together, thinking.

She looked like the aurora borealis in the gown he’d made, luminous and rare. He’d imagined her in this gown every minute he’d spent making it.

Weaver had an excellent imagination.

And still, she was so much more radiant in it than he’d ever pictured.

Legs jumped out of his pocket, determinedly gathering up all the nightmares again and wrapping them up in spider silk. Maybe it would help the sleeping fairies, just a little.

Even Legs had decided to be brave and try again.

“Before we go, I have to tell you I’m sorry one more time, Periwinkle,” he said. “I’m sorry for being the reason you started dreaming. I’m sorry for taking advantage of you once you did. I’msorry for putting you through all this and for using you to do something so terrible.”

“I don’t forgive you,” she said softly. Weaver stiffened, but she held up a hand. “I don’t forgive you for the dreaming, because it wasn’t your fault that I found something you accidentally left behind.”

He relaxed, ever so slightly. But then she continued. “You lied to me. You manipulated me. You sent me nightmares. And I feel like a fool for being used so easily.”

“I know.” Weaver hung his head. Then he felt her fingers on his cheek.

“But, Weaver, the thing is that those dreams weren’t totally made up,” she said. “Every nightmare you sent me about the Pixie Dust Tree being torn apart, of the root rotting—those were your way of explaining what you were feeling about losing Selene. Of sharing with me what had happened to your friend, when you couldn’t talk about it with anyone else. And yes, what you did was wrong, and the nightmares were horrible,” she admitted. “But the reality must have been much, much worse. I can’t imagine losing a friend the way you did. I don’t know what I would’ve done if Gliss or Spike had been in Selene’s place.”

Weaver shook his head, scoffed quietly. Weaver had a very good imagination. But he could never have imagined this: Periwinkle the frost-talent, looking at him with kindness after everything he’d done.

“You’re exhausted,” she said as she traced the violet circles beneath his eyes. She went quiet for a moment. “This color showed up a lot in my nightmares,” she said, slowly. “In all of them, in fact, until last night. Until you appeared.”